Category Archives: Voice recognition

Week 100 QotW – Voice and Amazon

This is our Question of the Week episode for this week, with our News Roundup to follow on Friday. This week’s question is “Is Voice the Next Big User Interface, and is Amazon Really Winning? ” The question comes from the prevailing narrative in the media, which often seems to hold both that voice is going to be the user interface that replaces current ones like touch screens and smartphones, and that Amazon is dominating that voice interface market. We pour some cold water on both assertions and use survey and other data to evaluate the true state of the market, what’s really going on, and whether anyone is really “winning”.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. You can reach the individual hosts on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast. And we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice.

Week 91 News Roundup – Apple tidbits, Google Home Multi-user, Netflix Earnings, S8 Reviews

Earlier this week, we did our Question of the Week episode, which covered the Facebook F8 announcements, so this News Roundup episode covers some of the other big news for the week:

  • Several Apple news tidbits, including a set of environmental announcements, hires of satellite experts from Google, the purchase of a music documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, web embedding of Live Photos, and purported shots of the chassis for the next iPhone
  • Google Home announcing multi-user support, as well as two announcements relating two Amazon Echo and Alexa
  • Netflix Q1 2017 earnings
  • Samsung Galaxy S8 reviews, which came out this week, and news that Google Music will be the default music service on the devices.

As always, you’ll find links to these stories and other things we discussed underneath the SoundCloud player embedded below.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

  • News stories we covered (Tech Narratives links):
    • Apple’s environmental news:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/20/apple-makes-big-environmental-push-for-earth-day/
    • Apple hires Google satellite execs:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/21/apple-hires-google-satellite-execs-likely-for-mapping-or-broadband/
    • Apple acquires a music documentary:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/20/apple-acquires-first-movie-at-tribeca-film-festival/
    • Apple enables web embedding of Live Photos:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/20/apple-enables-web-embedding-of-live-photos-for-developers/
    • Google Home multi-user support:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/20/★-google-home-now-recognizes-multiple-users-by-voice/
    • Amazon opens Lex platform to all developers:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/19/amazon-scales-alexa-back-end-by-opening-lex-voice-and-text-service-to-all-developers/
    • Amazon bans most ads in Alexa Skills:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/21/amazon-bans-almost-all-ads-in-alexas-third-party-skills-apps/
    • Netflix reports Q1 2017 earnings:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/17/netflix-reports-q1-2017-gains-5m-subs-makes-first-profit-internationally/
    • Galaxy S8 reviews:
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/04/18/samsung-galaxy-s8-reviews-say-hardware-is-great-software-not-so-much/

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. You can reach the individual hosts on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast. And we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice.

Episode 48 – Consumer Tech in Africa, Apple & AI

We’re back to our usual format for this week, with a News Roundup, Question of the Week, and a third topic, plus a Weekly Pick.

Our News Roundup covered three topics: Spotify’s financials, which Jan wrote about earlier in the week; Microsoft’s decision to exit the consumer smartphone market; and Twitter’s planned change to the 140-character limit. Our Question of the Week piggybacks off Aaron’s recent trip to Ghana, which is one of a number of trips he’s made there over the last nine years. The question is “What’s the state of consumer technology in Africa?” and we spent a good amount of timing doing a deep dive into this topic, based not just on Aaron’s personal observations but on additional research (see the show notes for a couple of good sources).

Our third topic this episode was Apple’s efforts in AI, and a narrative that seems to have emerged recently about a perception that Apple is behind in AI, and that this will be problematic for the company. We talk about the pros and cons of this argument, how it relates to Siri specifically, and how Siri might evolve at this year’s WWDC. Lastly, we have our Weekly Pick, which is actually a double recommendation from Jan this time around.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.